Its disturbing how accepted the cry of "partisan attack" is in our culture. If you accept partisan sourced material, then you are leading the country to Third World Country type retaliations rather than the shining light the USA supposedly represents.

But hold on: its rather obvious that the parties are LOATHE to take action against their own. If law enforcement can't act upon contra party partisan claims/documents/facts.....then the elected class and deep state would be given permission to run even more roughly over our shod.

Poodle is so right: not a word about the accuracy of data, and even that doesn't matter if it provides a clue/hint/start for an investigation that bears fruit.

THE COUNTERFACTUAL IS TRUE: Every new administration should prosecute the previous one. Only way to keep them honest. Now, by and large, the USA does not do that............................. and we are totally corrupt as a result.

A fine balance.........we still need to work on.

Real Name: bobbo the existential pragmatic evangelical anti-theist and Class Warrior.
Asking: What is the most good for the most people?
Sample Issue: Should the Feds provide all babies with free diapers?

Jo: I won't argue the fine distinction you want to make, and that is there. But we are totally corrupt in too many areas. Its true.... you can't pay off a cop to get out of a ticket....but the fraud takes place at another level....like too many of the laws we have that do result in fines or jail. THAT is corruption too......not just payoffs in the Halls of Congress which is what our "Democracy" runs on......and what Wallstreet Runs on.

I suspect Jo.............its is "in fact" worse than you think. ......................but not "totally" corrupt for the comfort that gives you.

Real Name: bobbo the existential pragmatic evangelical anti-theist and Class Warrior.
Asking: What is the most good for the most people?
Sample Issue: Should the Feds provide all babies with free diapers?

Jo: well thanks..........but I didn't mean to reverse your position, just focus your attention elsewhere, and now it looks like we have thrown Matt into Limbo? I thought Western Europe has a formal "tip" situation where the service fee is added to your presented bill? Its not a tip...with the constant pressure from locale to locale to tip on top of the service fee.

Re the Institutionalize Fraud/Corruption we have...just saw a youtube on home distilling. The guy said only two States in the USA allow for home brewing without a Federal License. Some state make having a still alone illegal....even for making water or anything else. What is THAT but a form of corruption? Same with requiring 3 years of Beauty School to braid hair. The corruption just moved from thugs entering your shop to demand protection money, to thugs entering your shop and jailing your for not having a license.

But it is the out and out textbook corruption that takes place in politics.....aka: fundraising. RIGHT IN OUR FACES!!!

Congress creeps may join the team as out of work actors.........but they ALL leave congress multi-millionaires. Inside Trading is not illegal for CongresCreeps to do...even for industries they directly legislate. Program after program, law after law: pure fraud..... but its legalized.

Back in the late 70's I got stopped by a traffic cop in Tijuana for some infraction. I was expecting having to pay him off....but no....he just gave me a warning. Imagine that?

Real Name: bobbo the existential pragmatic evangelical anti-theist and Class Warrior.
Asking: What is the most good for the most people?
Sample Issue: Should the Feds provide all babies with free diapers?

From the horse's mouth ...
Speaking from a UK perspective (which, at the moment, is the EU perspective) any service charges must be declared pre-transaction. Tipping is optional and is actually dying out as a result of minimum-earnings legislation. Most people in the UK now do not tip unless the service really has been good - as was the original point. Save your tips for the poor sods on zero-hours contracts - aka the fiddle to get around that minimum earnings stuff (and no, they don't work in restaurants).

1. Isn't there a "standard" service charge on top of the menu price of the food you eat virtually everywhere? Its been 10 years since I visited the EU. South America and Asia is "all over the place."

2. I'm confused. My apple mash perks away at a slow rate slowly becoming less sweet....but when I stir my mash and put two cups of mash into two cups of sugar water.....the 4 cups do not bubble at all. I assume the two cups of mash are "alive" and it acts like the yeast is killed by the sugar mixture? So....I pour the failed yeast activation into my 7 gallon bucket...and the whole thing keeps slowly bubbling away. Makes no sense to me.....

3. I am getting more interested in home distilling...as I have all the parts, just need to "do it." Ha, ha.....thing is, I'm drinking the HCider so fast....Its hard to see where I will get the wort to distill?....but I assume some day I will have more apples than I can drink....then I will distill. I'm going to use a basic pot still with a short reflux tower....I like the look over just a pipe coming out of a cooker. I do think the store bought stills, expecially to copper or the all glass ones are a piece of ART...and I could buy them for that purpose alone (Like the Samovar I bought years go?)....but as part of my hobby is "being cheap", I'll avoid that for the time being. You'll be amused: I'm going to use my 6 gallon ALUMINUM pressure cooker....because I don't like the idea of buying another one of the same size just to have Stainless. I've read the pros and cons and the pros all seem to misstate facts. Everyone cooks with aluminum...so why not? My 40 year old pot is pit free after gallons of chili made in it with high acid tomato sauces and such.

Like I said: keeping everything as cheap as can be. Most expensive thing for me so far has been the cost of the yeast.

My favorite: air locks for $3 each. Very cheap....but why not run a ten cent tube into a glass of water? Thats the cheap part of the hobby. ymmv

Real Name: bobbo the existential pragmatic evangelical anti-theist and Class Warrior.
Asking: What is the most good for the most people?
Sample Issue: Should the Feds provide all babies with free diapers?

1. Isn't there a "standard" service charge on top of the menu price of the food you eat virtually everywhere? Its been 10 years since I visited the EU. South America and Asia is "all over the place."

2. I'm confused. My apple mash perks away at a slow rate slowly becoming less sweet....but when I stir my mash and put two cups of mash into two cups of sugar water.....the 4 cups do not bubble at all. I assume the two cups of mash are "alive" and it acts like the yeast is killed by the sugar mixture? So....I pour the failed yeast activation into my 7 gallon bucket...and the whole thing keeps slowly bubbling away. Makes no sense to me.....

3. I am getting more interested in home distilling...as I have all the parts, just need to "do it." Ha, ha.....thing is, I'm drinking the HCider so fast....Its hard to see where I will get the wort to distill?....but I assume some day I will have more apples than I can drink....then I will distill. I'm going to use a basic pot still with a short reflux tower....I like the look over just a pipe coming out of a cooker. I do think the store bought stills, expecially to copper or the all glass ones are a piece of ART...and I could buy them for that purpose alone (Like the Samovar I bought years go?)....but as part of my hobby is "being cheap", I'll avoid that for the time being. You'll be amused: I'm going to use my 6 gallon ALUMINUM pressure cooker....because I don't like the idea of buying another one of the same size just to have Stainless. I've read the pros and cons and the pros all seem to misstate facts. Everyone cooks with aluminum...so why not? My 40 year old pot is pit free after gallons of chili made in it with high acid tomato sauces and such.

Like I said: keeping everything as cheap as can be. Most expensive thing for me so far has been the cost of the yeast.

My favorite: air locks for $3 each. Very cheap....but why not run a ten cent tube into a glass of water? Thats the cheap part of the hobby. ymmv

I've had to quote that so I can see it while I'm answering ...

1. No - a service charge is whatever the proprietor decides upon. The TAX on the service charge is fixed.
2. Yeast produces alcohol (and therefore waste carbon dioxide) in an anaerobic environment. It reproduces in an aerobic environment. Stir in oxygen and guess what happens - it divides instead of excreting alcohol. No bubbles.
3. Homework. Make VERY. VERY sure that you understand the chemistry of distillation before you try it. You have two possible products - ethyl alcohol and methyl alcohol. You do NOT want to produce the methyl version.

Poodle: thanks as always.
1. Yes....I'm confusing the service change with a tip. Seem to do about the same thing in my memory.

2. Thank You. That distinction was not clear to me. In fact, the last video I watched (a transexual in a bikini...but as most are: a fun person) emphasized the need for oxygen in the first 12 hours of pitching the yeast. NOW ITS CLEAR: to aid in the reproduction to "activate" them. In the 5-6 years I've dipped into this issue....never so clear as you just stated. Killed by the oxygen, not the sugar.........and not killed, just busy dividing instead of fermenting. Hmmm...how come no foam or activity at all then???? Perhaps thats the difference between being dormant vs alive? And...there was no activity for 24 hours. Seems to me it should kick up after awhile? I'll try this again on my next batch and just let it sit "forever." I'd do it now, but I think I'm maxed out on the sugar. Other aspect of my hobby ways: be patient.

3. What chemistry? The only issue is the aluminum entering the distillate which should be indicated by taste, color of the product or pitting of the pot? I have no taste but can see color...but a color change sounds "drastic" and I am probably confusing that with too much water vapour just clouding the tail? There must be different quality of aluminum as this pot is OLD and has cooked a whole lot of tomatoes. Its mirror smooth. Same issue kinda with Stainless. There is cheap stainless that will rust, so I assume pit as well?

I'm sure you'll be amused....that transexual made another point of not needing to be too clean. Rested her stirring stick on the ground inbetween takes. I think to a limit that is true. almost as if "the experts" want to sell sanitizing products and the like? I've been sterlizing "once" at the start with cheap bleach, and then after that just keeping things "clean" by running water over them. Good quality water here in Sacramento. Tastes good, low chlorine if any (I assume but there is no taste)...good for baking and for brewing.......don't need that distilled water from the store.

ymmv.

Edit: Just for grins: her she is. Lives in Los angeles.

Real Name: bobbo the existential pragmatic evangelical anti-theist and Class Warrior.
Asking: What is the most good for the most people?
Sample Issue: Should the Feds provide all babies with free diapers?

Here you go, bobbo ...
When you ferment a sugar solution with yeast, you get a solution of methyl and ethyl alcohols plus some esters 'n' stuff which give you flavour. That's raw wine which may or may not improve with long-term anaerobic storage. That's OK, in the ratio they're present, as evidenced by thousands of years of fermented beverages designed (don't let anyone fool you) to get you as pissed as you like. You may be sick, you may have a hangover, but in general you're OK. But methyl alcohols (they're the nasty ones which can, and do, mess you up in all kinds of ways) are particular creatures, When you heat their environment, they're the first ones to jump out of solution into the gaseous state and crawl up your tubes (if you see what I mean). In the first four fluid ounces from a distillation, you'd be a very lucky man to see a trace of an ethyl. So - guess what you do. You gather that first four (five if you're being really careful) fluid ounces of distillate and you (here's the pain) throw it away. Don't argue. Centuries of folk chemistry is tied up here, and it all says "THROW IT AWAY".
If you do that, you will retain your vision into old age and you will retain the ability to post on this forum. You will also retain your sanity because you will not have poisoned yourself. All methyl alcohols (think methylated spirits) are toxic. Therefore, do not keep them in your beverages.

And I'm sorry - that's a bloke

And how the hell did this get onto a Rachel Maddow thread? I blame you, bobbo.

I am responsible....thought about starting a brew thread, but didn't think I would be yammering on about it as I have....but the questions keep coming as the homebrew is ongoing.

Yes, the toxic head methanol is to be used for fire starting or paint stripping but the issue was what that has to do with distilling from an aluminum pot? If it pits, colors, or smells==I'll stop. Until then, chili beans have always been a friend of mine.

I "think" according to modern sensibilities......no one can tell what she/he is as its mostly an internal process. She/he does not give it away in the video but iirc she uses a girls name....as much as any name is gender id'ing. I'm sure she has a laugh with some of the double entendre film shots she uses. Earthworms have sex........fairly boring subject........... EXCEPT for our own. Much of life is like that.

Real Name: bobbo the existential pragmatic evangelical anti-theist and Class Warrior.
Asking: What is the most good for the most people?
Sample Issue: Should the Feds provide all babies with free diapers?

Real Name: bobbo the existential pragmatic evangelical anti-theist and Class Warrior.
Asking: What is the most good for the most people?
Sample Issue: Should the Feds provide all babies with free diapers?

In an interview with MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," Brennan told host Nicole Wallace that the president was "ill prepared" to take on the duties of commander-in-chief, particularly growing military aggression from Russia and North Korea.
"It is no secret to anybody that Donald Trump was very ill prepared and unexperienced in terms of dealing with matters that a head of state needs to deal with, head of government, and I think this is now coming to roost," Brennan said.
"[O]ur country needs to have confidence that we're going to be able to deal with Mr. Putin, who is flexing his muscles once again on the military front, that we can deal with North Korea, that we can deal with these issues. And if we have somebody in the Oval Office who is unstable, inept, inexperienced, and also unethical - we really have rough waters ahead."
The former CIA chief under President Obama went on to hit Trump for tweeting at actor Alec Baldwin over his "Saturday Night Live" impression of Trump rather than responding to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who announced the previous day the development of missiles he claimed would render defense systems "useless."
"When I hear what Vladimir Putin was saying just yesterday about the nuclear capabilities he has, the President of the United States is tweeting about Alec Baldwin this morning, I mean, where is your sense of priorities?" Brennan asked.
"I think a lot of Americans are looking at what's happening with a sense of - this is surreal."
The Russian leader told lawmakers this week that new intercontinental ballistic missiles developed by the country could reach almost any target in the world.
"I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed to contain our country's development ... you have failed to contain Russia," he said.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dismissed Putin's comments in a statement to CNN.
"President Putin has confirmed what the United States government has known all along, which Russia has denied. Russia has been developing destabilizing weapons systems for over a decade, in direct violation of its treaty obligations."

TP: Too much there....what to read? "America Fumbles Towards Kafka’s Castle" is a fine allusion. Imagine waking up ..... a bug. IIRC though, Kafka's experienced actually turning INTO a bug. Horrific. Mind the gap.... it can always be worse.

Real Name: bobbo the existential pragmatic evangelical anti-theist and Class Warrior.
Asking: What is the most good for the most people?
Sample Issue: Should the Feds provide all babies with free diapers?

Lusignan is a former Sanders supporter and solid liberal, yet she attacks Robert Mueller as being a former Bush apparatchick, and uses a great phrase about liberals "staying married to the lie

Lusignan checks her facts and doesn't lie or mislead.

Just wanted to check if anyone had heard of her. A friend of mine said I absolutely have to listen to her and if I don't I'm closed minded. I listened for about 2 minutes and figured out she's wacko, but he said since I didn't listen to the whole thing I couldn't form an opinion. I forced myself to listen to 40 minutes of a recent post just to prove it. She says "they" made propaganda legal in 2012 by rescinding the Smith-Mundt Act. She supplies lots of links and encourages you to check her facts, but oddly, she supplies no link to this law. It was actually an Amendment to the act, and it allowed for greater transparency of the service we supply to countries without a free press. We broadcast facts about the US into them. Then she went on to make wild speculations about companies that do crisis simulations. When she started yelling at the camera that she's no Alex Jones of the Left, I had to stop. That stuff is bad for you. Don't watch it.

Lusignan is a former Sanders supporter and solid liberal, yet she attacks Robert Mueller as being a former Bush apparatchick, and uses a great phrase about liberals "staying married to the lie

Lusignan checks her facts and doesn't lie or mislead.

Just wanted to check if anyone had heard of her. A friend of mine said I absolutely have to listen to her and if I don't I'm closed minded. I listened for about 2 minutes and figured out she's wacko, but he said since I didn't listen to the whole thing I couldn't form an opinion. I forced myself to listen to 40 minutes of a recent post just to prove it. She says "they" made propaganda legal in 2012 by rescinding the Smith-Mundt Act. She supplies lots of links and encourages you to check her facts, but oddly, she supplies no link to this law. It was actually an Amendment to the act, and it allowed for greater transparency of the service we supply to countries without a free press. We broadcast facts about the US into them. Then she went on to make wild speculations about companies that do crisis simulations. When she started yelling at the camera that she's no Alex Jones of the Left, I had to stop. That stuff is bad for you. Don't watch it.

Watched a couple of Sane Progressive (Debbie Lusignan) videos in the last few days, one of which is 1 hour 47 minutes long, and in one of them she made a short case that Alex Jones is a CIA operative. I don't know enough about him to have an opinion one way or another.

I tried to sort out the video she mentioned that in, but didn't find it.

Anyway, hate to be so vague, but I thought it was kind of cool. Maybe a real a conspiracy regarding a faux conspiracy theorist.

If one can be taught to believe absurdities, one can commit atrocities. --Voltaire

A friend of mine asked me to comment on her videos, I gave him short reviews and said that wasn't good enough, so listened to this entire one. Here are my comments:

She tells you what she says is a trick, while she’s doing that very trick, that is actually the trick. It starts when she says “Sesame Street game”, that’s shaming you if you get it wrong. She changes words after showing you a quote, from a guy who has obviously never been in an active shooter situation who says he felt a bullet graze his cheek to her words “hit in the face by a bullet”. He felt the pressure of it as it went by, and at that moment thought it hit him, but he has no experience with bullets whizzing by him. As for Samantha, what should you see? Isn’t it the paramedics job to stop the bleeding and stabilize her before loading her up? I’m sure she is loaded with pain killers in her face and legs.

Then the “I’m not Alex Jones” stuff starts, talking about “disappearing anybody who is talking about this story in critical and thoughtful ways.” Freedom of speech does not guarantee a platform. The government can’t force a private company to host a video. That’s how you want it to work, don’t you? But she would have you believe the FBI or somebody is doing the taking down.

Her evidence gets comical at times, bringing up a man named “Sam Fuentes” from the San Bernadino shooting as if that says something about the young woman named Samantha Fuentes. That should be a dead giveaway that she is either a parody, or doesn’t know what evidence is. She is willing to take any two random facts and have them mean whatever she wants. Then she gets fake angry that some unknown group, the MSM or something is “shaming and bullying” you. Despite her having done that throughout the video.

As she often says, I’ve got more but I’m not going to get into it.

At the end she says, “the silence is deafening”, making you feel special because you are listening. Despite that fact that she is one of many people doing videos like this. This is what they do on those late night videos where they try to get you to buy into some investment scheme or something, make you feel like you are right for buying whatever they have to sell. She keeps repeating the trick, she says she is going to “show” you and let you decide, then she tells you what to decide. It’s like watching a magician at work, except she isn’t calling it entertainment.

She doesn’t really even have a plan. She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t say anything about advocating for mental health legislation, she doesn’t know a politician who is doing anything good, she doesn’t try to organize anything, she isn’t FOR anything. It’s so easy to be against things, to say something might be wrong without being specific. What is she for besides leaving school and hating all politicians and all news except hers? I actually agreed with her list of laws that we should roll back, like The Patriot Act, except for a couple things she got wrong, but analyzing helicopter video is no way to fight for changes in those laws.

The video is titled: "Candace Owens on Her Journey From Left to Right (Live Interview)". I've seen several such videos over time and to me they all reveal basic logic/character flaws. It's been awhile, and you (TP) do recommend it, so I'll try to move to neutral and give it a listen.

My own life: born a blank slate, grew up without input, graduated college slightly left center. As I've aged, I've gone farther to the left. MY EXPERIENCE: government "should be" here to help we the people achieve the most we can with our individual choices......but what I SEE is the government loading the deck with favoritism and preferences to the Super Rich. MONEY: does represent opportunity and when MONEY is transferred from the poor to the rich, so are life's opportunities. Will this "refreshing" video of Candance Owens deal with this basic dynamic, or will it reveal an over self involved limited view personna more interested in what she herself can get out of the system "as if" all her success/opportunities are created/driven by her own force of will?

I'll give it a listen, and report back......hopefully, and I do assume I can make it to the end, but the loons often reveal no reason to listen early in their rants. We'll see...........

Real Name: bobbo the existential pragmatic evangelical anti-theist and Class Warrior.
Asking: What is the most good for the most people?
Sample Issue: Should the Feds provide all babies with free diapers?

1. 000==born of privilege, ivy league (sic), calls her degree in journalism “ironic”, graduated with “nothing” (first clue at my stated concern re self entitled “did it all on my own” motif so present on the Right), worked in private equity in NYC for 4 years (Hmmmm right from the start….I have to wonder what her creds are for staring life as a “liberal” or on the Left)
2. 2.00==Started her “anti-bullying thing” and “the left” attacked her changing her from left to right. Ha, ha…her left creditials NEVER established….but the instantaneous come to Jesus moment is. Not a lot of analysis==just an immediate recognition and acceptance?...............”ok”
3. 3:30==Evidently her thing was to offer software that would reveal the identity of “trolls” or people who bully other people on the internet. Evidently, “the left” was one person who had an incident on Twitter of being bullying and this person called Candace and said she did not want to know the identity of her harassers. Always love it when so typically “one” incident is all that is needed to put vast swaths of humanity and complicated issues into such easy to manage labels.
4. 6:00==Evidently, Candace wanted to make money by selling an anti-bullying, trolls revealing software thru a Kickstarter offering and thought of herself as a liberal. I buy that. We all think of ourselves to various degrees of insight. But being attacked by trolls on twitter by Trump supporting white men turned her? I hope the mechanics of this get explained?
5. 6:30 What I take to be a liberal journalist called Candace and interviewed her about being attacked on Twitter but then he wrote an article that “gaslighted” her experience.
6. 6:50: Candance summarizes the gravamen: “OMG…the media is going to try to kill my project and these journalists are absolutely lying.”
7. 745: Rubin says there is so much going on here “and we haven’t even gotten to the political awakening yet.” Candace agrees. Hmmm….did I read too much into what I note above?
8. 830: So…hit men journalists wanted to take Candace out because she might reveal the unknown trolls attacking various people were actually false flag operations run by the Hillary operation? ////// Sadly, I’ve seen this recognition/concern many times in political coming of age stories. Some bad issue is identified, and it is as here BAD, but one side or the other side is labeled as the BAD Actor as if the other side does/didn’t do the same thing or worse? A target fixation/myopia that doesn’t really explain the “political awakening” which if you stop a moment really says more than the first impression: what was “awakened?” IOW: what in this persons past/emotional makeup made them ready to focus on one party/ideology over the other? WHY NO BALANCE?.....Another routine political awakening story, of no interest….but I’ll keep going.
9. 10:00 So, her world is turned upside down, friends were enemies, she recognized it “immediately” and the only support she got was from the accurate and fair reporting of white Nationalist Breitbart. BREITBART!?!? The Road to Damascus event. Before I lose the thought….I’m kinda interested in this “technology” for revealing trolls Kickstarter campaign she wanted to fund? How would a liberal arts major who just got (I assume) FIRED from her “private Equity firm” have any capability to hack private data bases and reveal confidential information? Heh, heh….anyone think there might be more than one reason her Kickstarter project got rejected?.......I mean, besides the liberal cabal of Hillary Clinton??????
Ok….enough….just a twitter dispute. Aka: BOTH SIDES of our Left/Right political spectrum use opposition research, dirty tricks, and have minions both paid and volunteer take actions of various impacts all as part of our political contests. It doesn’t explain “WHY” anyone switches positions. It just demonstrates a failure to evaluate the full picture.
I see the sidebar has a 16 minute video of “Candace Owens Great Speech at the Conservative College”…I have no doubt she can give a great speech. Targeted subject selected audience….who of us could not pimp any such crowd. What is Kickstarter but pimping targeted interest groups? What else is politics?
I an once again reminded that “personal stories” are but anecdotal and of little value to anyone but the person involved….and then, only if the truth.
……………but that’s my own story. No side switching about it but rather a growing distrust of all things political.

Real Name: bobbo the existential pragmatic evangelical anti-theist and Class Warrior.
Asking: What is the most good for the most people?
Sample Issue: Should the Feds provide all babies with free diapers?